Friday, June 24, 2022, marked a sad day in the United States for women and female reproductive decisions concerning their own bodies. That’s a loaded statement right there. The 50-year-old Roe v Wade, a 1973 decision made by the supreme court allowing women to make their own decision if abortion was the right decision for their health and personal well-being was overturned making it officially but unofficially illegal to get an abortion in the United States of America.
The Supreme Court ruled there is no constitutional right to abortion in the United States upending the landmark Roe v Wade case from nearly 50 years ago a rare reversal of a long-settled law that will fracture reproductive rights in America.
As of today, 14 states have near-total abortion bans or bans after six weeks of pregnancy. Texas has made abortion a felony and any physician who performs an abortion on a pregnant woman faces life in prison and fines over 100,000 dollars. Arizona has banned abortion after 15 weeks of pregnancy. In some states, the trigger law is written so that abortions are immediately prohibited without needing further action. In other states, the policy requires 30 days to go into effect or certification from the state’s Attorney General, giving courts the opportunity to block the law temporarily.
What prompted the law to change? Up to this point in America abortion seemed to not be such a hot topic of debate with all the other pending crises. COVID-19, Quarantine, Economical issues, War in Ukraine, and major food and necessity shortages, so why the pressing issue to overturn a 50-year law?
As of now the new ruling in Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, Mississippi’s Gestational Age Act provides that except in a medical emergency or in the case of a severe fetal abnormality, a person shall not intentionally or knowingly perform or induce abortion of an unknown human being if the probable gestational age of the unborn human has been determined to be greater than 15 weeks.
Representative Attorney General for Texas, Ken Paxton celebrated the ruling and said, “Abortion is illegal here”. As per The Guardian “The Dobbs decision is the most consequential in generations. It will have profound, immediate, and enduring consequences for tens of millions of women and other people who can become pregnant. Ripple effects could play out over decades”. Meaning, that now we look to other monumental government changes, same-sex marriage, and marriage equality being at risk or access to contraception. This is a slippery slope
and at any moment other rights that were made laws can so loosely be denied at a moment’s notice.
The bigger issue looming is whether the supreme court stops with just abortion laws. If citizens especially, women allow laws concerning female reproductive decisions to be overturned by governing men will this end with just one law? That is the greater concern: will governing men decide IVF is playing god and deny women who are infertile the opportunity to have a family? Will the Plan B pill soon be illegal? At what point does it become an invasion of privacy and of female reproductive rights? These are the questions we must ask ourselves and at what point in the grand scheme of the decision-making by men over female bodies is enough? Will vasectomies become illegal after all that is a man’s right to decide whether he wishes to procreate but not a woman’s decision anymore, women have once again felt the sharp sting of watching our rights as women slowly slip away?
Mary Ziegler a visiting professor of constitutional law at The Harvard Law School, professor at the University of California, Davis School of Law, and historian of abortion said, “Even if it’s not completely unprecedented it’s extremely rare, referring to how quickly Roe v Wade was overturned, “It’s also extraordinary to do something like this so quickly, with no kind of advanced noticed.” In May a draft opinion was leaked supporting the overturning of the landmark case Roe v Wade in 1973 making abortion legal. It is then uniting abortion advocates nationwide to take up their signs and megaphones and begin protesting on the steps of congress.
There are 26 states expected to ban abortion from the moment of conception. “Under these restrictions, women will have to bear her rapist’s child or a young girl that has been molested by her father or an uncle to do the same, no matter if doing so will destroy her life.” Liberal Justice wrote. Many abortion advocates are suing over the trigger ban on working overtime in states such as Florida, Utah, Ohio, and Arizona. A Louisianna judge just passed on Monday temporarily, stopped the state from enforcing the Republican-backed laws banning abortion, set to take effect after the supreme court ended the constitutional right to the procedure as of June 24, 2022.
A statement said, “Abortion care is healthcare. Period.” This statement was signed by the following states, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.
It is and always will be a private decision by the individual what is best for their bodies. Although abortion was not a decision I would have made for myself I still believe it is a personal decision only a woman should decide about her body and not by men. Guns kill more children than cancer, and yet the laws for gun reform even with the new laws that were recently passed still do not protect our children from some lunatic walking into a school with an AR-15 the ultimate murdering weapon, and massacring our children. But by all means outlaw abortion so more single women bring children into a world that is marred with contradictions, needing government assistance, only to lose this child in a mass shooting at school. Because once again the men
who run our country have an agenda that will force a woman to conceive but fail to protect the child once he/she is born. If this is not an oxymoron then let’s just call them morons. Republicans hold fast to the teachings of the Bible and carry the banner of Christ as their reasoning for outlawing abortions, however, this is a stepping stone to banning further female rights, the supreme court has passed on their judgment to women who once chose to have an abortion, however, for it is, in the end, Christ who will judge us all.
2 Corinthians 5:10
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each of us may receive what is due us for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.